Aye carumba! Burritos As Big As Your Head in Chicago

"Can I take your order?"
"Yes, I'd like the burrito as big as my head, with the enchilada as big as my sternum, the chalupa as big as my patella, and a side of the chimichanga as big as my medulla oblongata."

Saw this place out the window of the Untouchables bus tour window in Chicago and had to snap a picture. I love the expression on the lady's face. Looks like the burrito as big as her head she just ate is doing a Mexican hat dance in her stomach right now.

Another Fine Ness: Chicago's Untouchables Tour

Site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Where John Dilliger saw his last movie

The alley where he was shot

One hilarious photo op after another

We haven't had a chance to see the new Johnny Depp movie "Public Enemies" yet, but we did take Chicago's Untouchables Tour recently. It's a two-hour guided bus ride that goes past key sites from the movie and other must-see crime scenes from Chicago's checkered past. Very entertaining too, as led by our two tour guides dolled up in the glad rags of a couple of 1930s tough mugs. They explain what a Chicago overcoat is (a coffin) and a Chicago typewriter (a sub-machine gun) while driving past famous crime scenes such as where the St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred (an empty lot today). The Biograph Theater, where John Dilliger took in his last picture show before taking a powder courtesy of Uncle Sam in the alley next door, is especially impressive. It has been lovingly and authentically restored to just how it looked in 1934 when Dillinger was given a case of lead poisoning by the G-Men waiting for him, and was used in the Johnny Depp movie. So take it from me, it's a great tour and I won't soft-soap ya for the love of Mike, it's a fine how do you do, you can bet yer bottom dollar, sez who? sez me!

Mortar-fied: Bondurant's Pharmacy of Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky has a lot of pretty horse country with beautiful green fields and white fences. If you're a horse, this is where you want to be. Lexington also has a really great eccentric roadside attraction: a pharmacy in the shape of a giant mortar and pestle. Bondurant's Pharmacy sits in a shopping plaza parking lot and is an oasis from the boring box stores that dot so much of the landscape. It's 30 feet tall and 32 feet in diameter, and the pestle protrudes another 10 feet. Here's what the Bondurant's website has to say about it:

The giant round building with the ball on the top has been helping the residents of Lexington feel better since 1974. Nowadays, Eric Brewer owns and manages Bondurant’s which got its name from Joe Bondurant, a man who loved big ideas. After a trip to Las Vegas, Mr. Bondurant – already a pharmacist – decided to make his dream come true, a pharmacy shaped like a mortar and pestle. Eric and his family also have an earlier role in Bondurant’s history. “My dad built the model of this place using an old Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket.”

The parking lot behind the structure has a few eccentric relics: a drive-in theater-like speaker system where customers would park their cars. The pharmacist would announce when the customers' prescriptions were ready over the intercom. Customers would then come to the pick up window for their drugs. This is curious, since the store also has drive-up windows. Did the speaker system precede the drive-up? Or could you do both? And did they show coming attractions while you were waiting for your Erythromiacin? They stopped using the speaker system in 2000 as the decaying paint job will attest and this just adds to the glorious yesteryear look and feel of the place.

This is an admirable roadside structure, especially since it's from the '70s and not the '30s, the hey-day for buildings shaped like big things. Even the backyard speaker system was behind the times when they built it, as drive-in theaters were already beginning to fade by then. And my favorite feature about this place is the fact that there is a 2nd-floor apartment for the pharmacist, although it's never been used for that. What pharmacist wouldn't want to live in a giant mortar and pestle?

They say it's your birthday: Louisville, Kentucky's "Happy Birthday To You" song plaque

I'm not sure this is what the Hill sisters had in mind.

Before we leave that great stretch of Louisville, Kentucky's Main Street that has the giant Louisville Slugger and Caufield Novelty Company bat (see previous post), there's one more eccentric roadside attraction nestled in between those two that I don't want to leave out. Underneath the overpass of Interstate 64 and attached to a parking lot sits a plaque in honor of two kindergarten-teaching sisters from Louisville who composed the "Happy Birthday To You" song. Patty and Mildred Hill wrote a tune in 1893 called "Good Morning to All" that was easy for their young students to sing. It had the melody of what later became "Happy Birthday To You," which first appeared as a song in print in 1912. In 1924, "Good Morning to All," with "Happy Birthday to You" printed as an optional second verse, was published. Oddly, the song was copyrighted much later in 1932 but with Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman as the composers. A third Hill sister, Jessica, believing that Patty and Mildred should have the credit and profit for the now very popular song, fought for and won legal copyright to her sisters for their song, and it was officially published in 1935 as "Happy Birthday." In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million. This company charges as much as $10,000 every time the song is used in movies, TV and recordings, or performed live commercially. The current copyright doesn't elapse until 2030. This explains why the waitstaff at TGIFridays doesn't sing the Happy Birthday song but some other tune like Yankee Doodle with birthday lyrics to your Grampa Joe on his big day. I'm not sure why the plaque was placed in such an odd spot. There doesn't seem to be much foot traffic through here and cars driving by will never notice it if they don't know its here already. Perhaps their kindergarten was in this spot all those years ago. So the next time your friends and loved-ones favor you with "Happy Birthday To You," the world's longest song when it's in your honor and you've got nowhere to look but the cake, remember the Hill sisters of Louisville.

Going batty in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky is home to what all seekers of eccentric roadside attractions love the most, the world's biggest whatever. Actually the world's two biggest whatevers, in this case bats. The baseball kind and the vampire kind. The Hillerich & Bradsby Co. are the proud makers of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat, now in its 125th year. In 1995, they placed the world's biggest baseball bat outside their new company headquarters on Main Street, all 125 feet of it. You don't have to be a baseball fan to see they really knocked it out of the park with this one. It leans surreally against their staid brick building with their burned-in logo on the side of the bat the size of 2 full-grown adults. Inside they have a really big baseball glove, too, but we didn't get a chance to see it as we got there after closing. Next door, the Kentucky Mirror & Plate Glass Company headquarters gets into the act with their rendition of a giant baseball smashing through a window. They go together like peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Less than a mile down the road Caulfield's Novelty Company keeps the bat theme going, albeit in their own kooky Halloween-and-novelty-supply-warehouse way. They're one of the largest theatrical distributors in the nation, actively stocking 1000’s of items including party supplies, hats, wigs, makeup, and, one would assume, fake vomit, too. To compliment the Louisville Slugger down the road, they've got a big scary vampire bat hanging upside down from their spacious headquarters. And bat's the way it is in Louisville.

Holiday Inn's new logo and signage: Inn-excusable

The late, great Holiday Inn sign

Looking out the back of the station wagon with a Holiday Inn sign on the horizon... life is sweet!

The interim sign from the 1980s-2000's: corporate but still a little kitschy.

The new signage (ZZZZzzzzzzz, snore)

Nice motel, really boring signage.

They still had the old logo on their deluxe coffee cups inside, though.

A reworked old gem.

An homage to the master.

We had a very pleasant stay at a Holiday Inn hotel near Chicago's O'Hare airport recently. Nice room, great service, friendly staff, terrific internet deal on the rate, quiet, clean. No complaints at all. Well... almost. It seems the InterContinental Hotels Group which owns the chain has begun what they call a world-wide relaunch of the brand that includes a redesign of their logo and signage. There are some things that should just never be redesigned. The Mona Lisa. The Taj Mahal. The Holiday Inn sign. When the chain began in the 1950s, road travellers were beckoned by a giant green and yellow gleaming 42-foot tall monolith with a friendly hand-written-looking script typeface and a chaser-bulbed arrow topped with a shining neon star to lead you to to the comfort and luxury of the best motel chain on the open highway. When you saw that sign you just had to ooh and ahh. It was a true American icon blinking you in the face. In the 1980s, they did away with the big signs for a more contemporary backlit box, but they kept that distinctive script, to remind you of those comfortable kitschy American roots. But now it seems even the script is gone, replaced by a bland sans-serif typeface suitable for any generic purpose. Bring it back, oh please bring it back. Doing away with that old logo is Inn-considerate, Inn-correct, Inn-comprehensible, Inn-defensible, and, well, you get the idea.

Steeped in eccentriciTEA: The World's Largest Teapot of Chester, West Virginia

Downtown Chester, West Virginia

If you don't care for tea, there's always The Coffee Pot of Bedford, Pennsylvania

I like states with panhandles. They're kinda kooky. Florida has so much coastline...did they really have to rob more of the Gulf from poor Alabama? And couldn't Oklahoma and Texas have reached some geometric agreement and squared each other off? The goofiest panhandle of all is West Virginia's, though. It's a tall spindly thing that begs the question "What kind of cooking implement has a crazy handle like this?" It's almost as though West Virginia said to eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, "if you two can't get along, I'll separate you, so help me." At the very tip of the West Virginia handle sits the little town of Chester and a truly great eccentric roadside attraction: a wooden structure that bills itself as the World's Largest Teapot. It dates back to 1938 when it was originally an over-sized barrel for a Hire's Root Beer advertising campaign. A fellow named William "Babe" Devon bought it and added the spout and handle to it and used it to promote his pottery store in Chester, selling concessions and souvenirs inside the teapot. It changed hands many times and fell into disrepair and abandonment until a local committee saved it from demolition and began a full-blown restoration in 1987. Red tape persisted for several more years until it was finally completed and returned to its original splendor in 1990 and was moved to a prime spot of real estate at the intersection of Routes 2 and 30 with some lovely landscaping. It got another facelift in 2007 by the Hampton Hotels Save-A-Landmark program. God bless these people for keeping these bits of Americana alive and making a trip down the open road that much more fun. Letting a lovable place like this fade away would be a trageTEA.

Dean Martin's hometown: When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's Steubenville, Ohio.

The one and only Dino, Steubenville's favorite son

The one and only Dino mural

 

Conveniently located next to Kroger's Supermarket

There's Dino fun to be had at the Steubenville Visitors Center

You're nobody til Tom Tom loves you

Dean Martin Blvd.

Dean Martin Blvd.

Steubenville has some first-class murals

Nobody was a cooler entertainer than Dean Martin. For decades he was everyone's favorite breezy, tux-wearing, skirt-chasing, pseudo-drunk crooner. He was the guy with the "who cares?" attitude that Frank Sinatra always tried to be like but was too intense a person to pull off. You would have expected him to have been from a swingin' cosmopolitan place like New York or Chicago, but he was born and raised in the unlikely industrial rustbelt town of Steubenville in eastern-most Ohio, not too far from Pittsburgh on the Ohio river. Wikipedia says "During its heyday in the period of the 1940s-60s, Steubenville was popularly known as "Little Chicago," a nickname that, on the one hand, evoked the city's prolific industry and downtown bustle, while on the other hand suggesting Steubenville's reputation for crime, gambling, and corruption." The town today is a hardscrabble yet earnest place, trying to beautify and better itself despite some hard times (and what smells like the fumes from a chemical processing plant in the air). It has Fort Steuben, a strategic camp from the post-Revolutionary era. It also has 25 beautiful murals painted on the outside of downtown buildings. Really nice ones. But Dino is still the main attraction here. His mural is the nicest and it's next to the Kroger's Supermarket, where everybody can see it. And they've renamed a stretch of Rt. 7, the main drag, Dean Martin Boulevard. It doesn't pass by glamorous casinos and nightclubs, though...just smoky power plants and rusty steel bridges, but, hey, they did the best they could. And if you're in the area this Thursday through Sunday (June 18-21), they're having their yearly Dean Martin Festival, which should be a gasser, pallie, a real gasser. Everybody loves somebody sometime.